[ti]private[/ti]Then Perish

"Easy peasy," Sarah repeated bitterly, as the pair trudged through sewer waters the thickness of rotten glue. She'd turned the 'SMELL' slider on her UI down to 1/10 the moment they passed the gate, but the sickening stench of slime and ancient cheese and, well, sewerage still clung to her lungs and throat. Every breath felt like it was huffed directly from unwashed gym shoes. "You know, I did hear some rumors around town about Patrat of unusual size. Some guy at the saloon said he saw a pack of them pick up a whole Mudsdale and carry it away. I thought he was just an NPC with high imagination, but maybe they've grown strong on all that forbidden cheese."

Something moved within the river of slime, and Sarah sent out her Duraludon. She clambered up onto its back and watched as the thing swam towards them in the dank waters. Her Duraludon stomped territorially, and whatever was approaching slunk away, still fully submerged. Sarah shared a look with Kazuki. "Did you see that? Chuck said Patrat, right? And not swer-dwelling Sharpedo or something?"

The pair reached a fork in the tunnel, and Sarah looked down both paths. The left path dipped off hard into blackness, like a slide into a slimy abyss. The right path looked cheesy, with huge, bright yellow fungal veins pushing out from between the bricks in the walls.

It wasn't often that Sarah has greeted with two, equally terrible, options.

"Well what do you think? Jump into darkness or slog down the parmesan path?"

Shaken by the voice from deep within the cheesy tunnel, the pair opted for pure darkness.

Kindler embers fall from Sarah's body as she rides into the gloom. The sparks ignite the gasses around them in little pops and flashes of putrid light. "I can't believe they added a poison swamp to the game, and then hid it underneath a cowboy town," Sarah complained.

Duraludon groaned, and Sarah looked down to see that the acidic sewerage they were tromping through was eating away at the soft metal of his legs. "Oh gross. That's so gross. Freedom, Return!" She splashed down into the muck as her dragon disappeared.

And now she was up to her knees in the sewerage. In the dark. The only saving grace was that she still had someone to share her misery with.

Stay focused, stay calm, and we'll be out of here in no time. she told herself. "We have three problems. We need light, we need a way to navigate, and we need to deal with this smell." Sarah stopped and opened her UI, the solution to all of digital life's problems.

"I've got the light," she said, bringing up her box. She sent out Charcadet, the smallest and newest of her fire types. The little Pokemon cried out in alarm (and rightfully so). This was a rude introduction to the world, and she would have to make it up to him later.

"Sorry about this little guy. Just think bright thoughts and I'll fix the smell." Sarah had always been a Kindler. It had been one of the first and certainly the easiest choice when making her character, and she'd augmented it only with the power of Catalyst.

But now it was time to branch out.

She tapped through the UI, maxing Catalyst and equipping a new class: Gardener.

Instantly, the smell of fresh cut grass filled the tunnel. It clashed with the smell of rank sewerage and over-aged rat cheese, but as Sarah set her feet deep in the sludge, she watched an aura of purification spread out around her. "I always see people making flowers bloom, but I never see them use the class's best feature," she said to Kazuki. "Gardeners can cleanse areas of death and decay, and judging from the smell something has certainly died here."

As the air around them slowly cleared, and the sewerage retreated in lieu of clear, pristine waters, she smiled to herself. "I'll keep the crap at bay and you lead the way."